I am not sure if anyone has seen this before or come across this but I ran into something disturbing last night.

I ordered a photo etch set for my Ticonderoga class cruiser from a Chinese seller. I opened it last night and noticed something very familiar with the instructions. They looked a lot like WEM instructions. So I checked on the WEM website and found the relevant fret and I am a bit disgusted.

What these pirates had done is re-arrange the frets so the photo etch parts were in a different order HOWEVER on the instructions the diagram of the fret was the exact same as that on the WEM website because its a literal copy/paste.

I am very disappointed to see this. I know there are pirates on resin parts but I had never seen Photo etch stolen like this.

So looking back at my original post I think it makes not much sense so I wanted to clarify.

These are the frets I ordered off ebay:

These are some of the instructions I got with the set:

This is the fret layout in the instructions I received:

And this is the Original fret from White Ensign Models

The physical fret layout from ebay do not match the instructions however the parts are all present and have same part numbers. The instruction fret layout is identical to the WEM fret.

I am all for trying to find a deal but this is out and out piracy and theft. Please do not buy any photo etch labelled CNDRAGON as I would not be surprised it they have stolen from other PE manufacturers.

Someone is always trying to make a buck off of someone else work. How is the quality of the PE? Is it thicker or thinner than W.E.? Most times the duplicate is done with a lot cheaper material than the original.

I have yet to experience this with a Chinese seller but sometimes I worry want will be in the box when it arrives when seeing the price they are asking for it.

I have been doing some comparison and it looks like their Spruance Class fret is also stolen from WEM and their KGV is a direct copy of the Pontos set. That one they haven't even tried to change. The Udaloy set is a direct copy of Gold Medal Models.

I did get a reply back from Richard at WEM, he says CNDragon is known to have pirated sets in the past and he is going to try work with Ebay to get these removed.

This is so well known that the Nautical Research Guild has banned any posts concerning Chinese kits from their site, ( http://www.modelshipworld.com) outright. What surprises me is that people are surprised.

Sure, it surprised me too at first, as they copied everything down to the box. Now I know, and knowing it I see it all the time, and as I said, over on the NRG's site they won't allow anything to be posted regarding them at all.